Nekros Ability Redesign: The Viral Necromancer

[Jamescell]

There are people that want to see Nekros reworked, and others that don't. I am one of the people who wants to see him redone because he could be so much better given his theme. The following is a complete overhaul of his abilities, not because his current abilities aren't viable, but because they are designed poorly. Edit: it has recently come to my attention that Typhus, the popular fan-frame was confirmed by DE. As a result, I am going to change his viral themed ability. 

 

Dessecrate: Nekros summons a bulky Tenno construct called a Warframe husk. Warframe husks function like specters but are only armed with elongated melee claws. They also utilize specter AI. Husks are so aggressive in nature that they act as decoys in a very small radius. Husks have no sets stats. The defensive and damage stats of a husk depend on the faction, level, and number of enemies Nekros has killed. Husks can be infected by Sacrilege but will suffer no negative effects. Only one husk may be active at a time.

Soul Drain: Nekros drains a portion of his own health and energy to cast a large, free-target "soul punch" in a medium sized AOE. Enemies caught in the AOE will be ragdolled. When enemies hit by soul drain are below 50% health their defenses are weakened significantly, allowing players to deal much more damage to them for a duration. Enemies killed while soul drain is active (while the debuff still has duration) each drop as much health in health orbs as Nekros lost casting the ability. If Nekros casts soul drain on a husk, the husk will explode with soul-drain energy, amplifying soul drain's AOE. 

 

Sacrilege: WiP

Ascendance: Nekros channels for a short duration and enters a powerful energy-fueled state. Aesthetically, Nekros's size slightly increases. Ascendance costs nothing to cast, but drains energy over time. While ascendance is active, Nekros is equipped with a large scythe that slices through enemies in medium-sized AOE's. (Wouldn't have energy projectiles that Exalted Blade has). Nekros is also allowed to use other abilities while ascendance is active. Nekros' first second and third abilities are more powerful and cheaper to cast while ascendance is active. Nekros exudes an aura of despair- enemies nearby will be more likely to take cover than act aggressively.

Edited August 25, 2015 by Jamescell

[tinyranitar]

Here is my take on his rework. Drop by and leave a suggestion if you like

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/517313-an-idea-to-a-more-reaper-like-nekros/

 

Your takes on Nekros seems interesting, but it misses out on his supportive side.

[Surtur]

This is actually kind of similar to what I posted in tinyranitar's thread, at least for the ult. I still support this and would love to see changes to nekros. And if a nekros rework was on the table maybe an awesome skin would be too

 

And I do support nekros being an offense oriented frame.  Necromancers are often 1 man armies, and as such should be self sufficient and able to defend themselves and allies. But this would turn nekros into a grim reaper and he would no longer be a necromancer. Still an interesting take

Edited August 25, 2015 by Surtur

[Jamescell]

Here is my take on his rework. Drop by and leave a suggestion if you like

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/517313-an-idea-to-a-more-reaper-like-nekros/

 

Your takes on Nekros seems interesting, but it misses out on his supportive side.

 

Self advertisement is not a cool thing to do buddy. Who says he needs to be support focused? My rework intends for him to be a necromancer, not the next trinity. He has two healing abilities, an enemy offensive de-buff and a decoy. I find that to be support enough.

[taiiat]

Desecrate not being a l00t Farming Ability sounds good to me. the game is better off without them.

however the Viral Plague is kind've stepping on Venom's shoes. which absolutely pinpoint matches the theme of Saryn, and it's also it's only purpose. that Ability Viral debuffs them and other stuff.

[Jamescell]

Desecrate not being a l00t Farming Ability sounds good to me. the game is better off without them.

however the Viral Plague is kind've stepping on Venom's shoes. which absolutely pinpoint matches the theme of Saryn, and it's also it's only purpose. that Ability Viral debuffs them and other stuff.

Sacrilege and Venom do different things and are used for different purposes. Saryn shouldn't even have a viral ability to be honest. Venom should do toxin damage... Anyways, the abilities aren't very similar in the sense that you don't need to pop sacrilege for spread, and for two, that sacrilege technically doesn't do any damage- its more support based. 

[taiiat]

Sacrilege and Venom do different things and are used for different purposes. Saryn shouldn't even have a viral ability to be honest. Venom should do toxin damage... Anyways, the abilities aren't very similar in the sense that you don't need to pop sacrilege for spread, and for two, that sacrilege technically doesn't do any damage- its more support based.

it's been years since Venom did any significant Damage. it's pure Debuffing now.

and i fail to see why a Warframe with a theme of all things toxic and gross should be relegated to only having Toxin available. (and why a Necromancer specifically should have, and nothing else should)

having only Toxin would also make the Warframe less viable in this game. as Abilities deal static low Damage which doesn't have the benefit of 55-110x Damage Boost from Mods to ride stats for easy Killing.

i understand the intent, but perhaps... making them more vulnerable to Damage. (Damage Bonus). this is already a very common feature, so you can be confident in knowing you're not stepping on anyone's shoes.

Edited August 25, 2015 by taiiat

[Jamescell]

it's been years since Venom did any significant Damage. it's pure Debuffing now.

and i fail to see why a Warframe with a theme of all things toxic and gross should be relegated to only having Toxin available. (and why a Necromancer specifically should have, and nothing else should)

having only Toxin would also make the Warframe less viable in this game. as Abilities deal static low Damage which doesn't have the benefit of 55-110x Damage Boost from Mods to ride stats for easy Killing.

i understand the intent, but perhaps... making them more vulnerable to Damage. (Damage Bonus). this is already a very common feature, so you can be confident in knowing you're not stepping on anyone's shoes.

if you want to talk about stepping on shoes there's a huge selection of abilities that already exist, including abilities on newer frames. Sacrilege works well with the kit, which gives it more reason than anything else to step on shoes. 

[--Q--Savokki]

How about soul survivor augment working on soul drain when cast it would drain 25%hp and 33% energy per tenno reviving your team would leave you with 1% energy and 25%hp when cast while ascendance is on it would have reduced cost 15% hp and 10% energy these stats would not be affected by mods, i really like playing with nekros and would not mind makin him more than a farm tool. Ascendace sounds cool and powerfull that in mind you would need souls from battlegrount to cast it more str mods you add more souls you would need yo cast it teammate kills would add to the count

[CrashLegacy14]

There are people that want to see Nekros reworked, and others that don't. I am one of the people who wants to see him redone because he could be so much better given his theme. The following is a complete overhaul of his abilities, not because his current abilities aren't viable, but because they are designed poorly.

To start with, please copy your post and paste as plain text. Right now it's formatted as if copied from the forum's light theme. for someone using the dark theme like me, it makes 90% of your post hard on the eyes. It sorta looks like this, except the whole damn thing is like this.Now, to the actual topic:I've seen other reworks that swear Nekros isn't 'necromancer enough' or that his grim reaper styling are misplaced. For a guy who starts things off by titling his thread 'viral necromancer' you seem to be skipping out on the necromancer part.Desecrate creates a single minion versus the 7 created by Shadows of the Dead. Atleast the single minion is more useful. After all he can uh.. what exactly can he do that isn't always added to Shadows of the Dead in other reworks. On right, it can spread the virus ability ... nice. Well, at least we can summon the shadow ... shade ... husk, really? Whatever, at least this thing can be summoned immediately out the box. The thing is, you basically mangled his ultimate, made it his first ability and, as what can only be a jab at others who actually liked it, decided to name it Desecrate. It really sets the tone for everything that comes after.Soul Drain, i.e. Soul Punch 2.0: We've made it the number 2 ability now! to make it worth the extra energy cost, its now an aoe ... oh wait it was already an aoe. we made it a better aoe. The weakening effect is nice, the health orb drop helps compensate for the fact we no longer have desecrate to pump out health orbs for us. But you also add in a health drain to the power. Honestly, this isn't worth the number 2 spot. Sacrilege: Nekros is apparently a thief now. A virus doesn't have anything to do with his theme, we have an entire warframe built around toxins and viruses, Hell, she even looks like a infested hooker ... Aw, crap, I'm about to get mauled by Saryn fans aren't I? Nekros is a Necromancer, a Grim reaper want-to-be, he plays with souls. While we're at it why don't you give him a power that slows the enemy down as a layer of cold from the grave creeps over them before insta-killing them? Might as well crib on Frost while you're at it. Oh wait, you kinda do that here with the effects. Worse, you don't even do a good job of describing the mechanics behind this power. How does the initial infected infect others? Do they need to make contact, does it automatically affect things within a certain range? what's the cap on the number of infected? How .. no why exactly do you apply a debuff to field of vision? its dealing damage so the enemy's altered, thus its not going to be any use for stealth. What other reason could you have for screwing with their field of vision?Ascendance: Also known as 'anything you can do I can do better' or 'Hey, Excalibur, check this out'. Congratulations Nekros, your growth from this ability means you can no longer fit through most doors. At least you can still parkour! That's good right? I mean, no other warframe with a ultimate that puts them in a special stance has their full mobility.. oh wait, they all do. Why did you even write that line?Moving on we got 'medium-sized' aoes out the deal, that's badass right? Numbers would be really helpful here is this like a ~4m radius slash with the scythe, or some sort of Exalted Blade want-to-be energy wave with a radius of 15 or 20m? You don't say, just 'medium-sized' and it's not the first time you just throw out this vague scale and expect us to know what you mean.Well, hey, we have an 'aura of despair' that ... just makes the enemy take cover more. Underwhelming much? Then there's a discount on the energy cost of, and potency of, Nekcros' three other powers. WHY? No, really, why? What does popping out a scythe and growing bigger have to do with any of the other abilities? Why would Nekros get that buff when Excalibur, whose abilities all synchronize much better, doesn't?Do I come off as much of an &#! here? It's intentional. You take a dig at the devs right of the back with your 'could be so much better' and follow it up with one of the least thought out and explained reworks proposed here (that I've seen, as sad as it is, there's probably worse). you shamelessly crib on other Warframes powers and themes, yet get snappy when others point this out. Then there's this little gem:

Self advertisement is not a cool thing to do buddy. Who says he needs to be support focused? My rework intends for him to be a necromancer, not the next trinity. He has two healing abilities, an enemy offensive de-buff and a decoy. I find that to be support enough.

Two healing abilities? I see one. Soul Drain, even if it happens to supposed to work with the Soul Survivor augment, is just one ability. Did you forget to describe something else providing healing? Considering how little you explained things, I'd not be surprised. Edited August 25, 2015 by CrashLegacy14

[Burnthesteak87]

While the idea of your Husks and Sacrilege is really nice, I've never seen a Necromancer transforming... Well just into "GuildWars2" design which is awful and I despise it. Also the name "Thanascyte" is... brrrr.

There's no point into giving Hysteria/melee-berserker to a supportive Warframe. Also Necromancer is a supportive role in most rpgs, so..

The only real change Nekros would need is making Desacrate into a channeled aura and having Soul Punch being reworked into something else.

Also talking about self advertisement, sometimes idea-sharing is a nice thing.

[SteaKnight-X]

I think  two changes would help Nekros to get some viabilty and still let him keep his old kit.

No new abilties, just some QoL changes^^

 

-Soul Punch

 I would remove the ragdoll animation of that ability.
I mean that abilitiy is called SOUL PUNCH. 

It should literally punch the soul out of your enemy
So, hitting an enemy with that abiltiy is punching a part of the enemy's soul out of the body, making an ethereal version of that enemy appear.

That have 50%/ 60%/ 70%/ 80% of the enemy's stats. And taunts the enemy on top of that.

 

 

Not sure what should happen, with the ethereal version if the target is killed:

- The soul could walk around and supports you.

Giving it a timer or just till it dies. There should be also a cap of how many Souls you can keep up.

 

- Or after killing the target the soul disappears, and gives Nekros temporaly the stats of the fallen enemy on top of his own(+ 50%/ 60%/ 70%/ 80% of the enemy stats) 

Like Chroma, Health and Shields would heal you even after the stats are gone( everything above your max Health and Shields also disappears)

 

-Desecrate 

even if most ppl dont like it, but bringer of death includes also killing on cellular level

But I think it should also affect the living beings.
Damage type could be 50%corrosive, 50% viral?

Should it be a DoT or not?(I mean the enemy start to rot.)

 

-Corpses drop loot, exactly like before

-on living enemies it deals damage.

-the enemy start to rot (DoT)

-50% viral, 50% corrosive 25/40/60/75 dmg per tick, 3 sec duration

-each tick has

a 10%/15%/20%/25% chance for corrosive proc

and

a 15%/20%/25%/30% chance for viral proc

 

-Negative duration increases the damage per tick(Like saryn)

But also decrease the chance for a proc (more ticks=more proc chances)

-Can be cast muliple times, but enemies who are already affected can't be affected again, until the duration goes down

 

[Jamescell]

@Crashlegacy14 read the ending of sacrilege. The spread would be proximity based. If units get close enough to an infected, they contract the debuff. You're right, I could do a better job explaining things, but the general consensus about reworks is that you should shy away from numbers as much as possible. Let the Devs handle that if they like the concepts.

I don't understand why you made the effort to seem so enraged. You use reasoning that essentially boils down to: I don't want to like these, so ill come up with irrelevant reasons as to why they're bad! Things like "oh no!, the first ability resembles the current ultimate!" and "oh no! the ability drains health!" aren't legitimate criticisms. If abilities that you irrationally dislike upset you this much then you must have a challenging life.

Regarding the first ability, big deal that I named it desecrate. For some reason it's something to get upset about? It's overly sentimental to say that you can't name an ability after an existing one that you're removing. Necromancy doesn't hinge on mass undead-surrection. In the case of Warframe's gameplay and for the sake of better ability design than the game currently has in a lot of cases, summoning an army doesn't fit Warframe's playstyle, and certainly would be hard to balance without creating something quite cluttered and messy like the current SHotD. Imagine four Nekros players each with an army of Tenno specters? Sounds broken to me. Especially for a first ability. 

Regarding the second ability, it may drain health, but (and here's why its best not to give numbers) I didn't mention how much health. Depending on what seems best, it could vary from 1 health to 99% of Nekros's health. Also, notice how I mention that the amount of health drained is dropped by each enemy? All you have to do is kill one enemy and voila! You're back to full health. It's a tradeoff. Tradeoffs at good and what's more, you don't actually trade anything off if you use the ability well. I should also clarify that it would be free-target... Like fireball.

Regarding the third ability, IT HEALS in case that wasn't clear enough. The third ability is in-fact, entirely support oriented. Heals teammates and the heals stacks the more enemies are infected, debuffs enemies.

As for the fourth ability, I'm not even sure what you're complaining about besides for the size thing, which I can change quite easily.

Edited August 25, 2015 by Jamescell

[CrashLegacy14]

@Crashlegacy14

Irrelevant reasons. I find that rather funny. Just like your assuming I don't want to like a rework's proposed abilities. Irrelevant reasons would have been something like 'I don't like this ability because the moon is full.' My criticisms, while delivered in an antagonistic manner, were and still are valid. I'm not, for example, just posting 'this is all crap'. I explained why.

One of my major criticisms was that you were ragging on the devs work -and continue to do so- while declaring you could come up with better. Yet what you present was messy, poorly explained, and, in many ways, incomplete. But, that's enough antagonism from me.

You state that we should shy away from numbers while in reworks and I do understand what you mean here, precise numbers tend to be a bad idea. In this case, however, you went too far in the other direction. You give use vague things like 'medium-sized aoe' or no indication of how much and assume we're going to be on the same page as you. You could have used ranges of numbers like 'deals about 150-400 damage' or 'dealing about the same damage as Ember's Fireball'. It would have helped fill in the how much and still suggest you were willing to tweak things.

Now the abilities themselves:

1) I'm comparing your Desecrate to Shadows of the Dead because of the multiple similarities and the fact they're both intended to be abilities of Nekros. Naming the ability Desecrate is honestly odd. Is it desecrate because he's desecrating the corpse of a fallen Tenno (why hasn't an ash or someone else put a knife between his ribs if that's the case?). As far as I can tell, he's not desecrating the remains of his foes - maybe their souls? You could easily give this a more descriptive name than desecrate, that doesn't carry with it the history of that ability. By naming the ability desecrate, your referencing the original ability of that name, whether you intend to or not, and yet it doesn't even remotely resemble that ability. it's kinda like naming a dog ... cat. Bad example, but I'm pretty sure you get the message.

Moving on, Beside trimming down Shadows of the Dead to one creature from seven, the only thing you say here is 'decoys in small radius' and 'no set stats, scales with number killed , enemy faction, ect'. Everyone wants the shades to draw aggro. That's nothing new. I doubt a single rework or buff for Nekros wouldn't include that, so we're not even going to comment there.

Stat wise, Shadows of the Dead already takes into account the number of enemies killed and the not only the faction, but type of enemies defeated. Further, the summoned units all gain up to +100% health and +150% damage buff, based on ability rank, to their base stats.

So really, the only thing your version has going for it is that it'll be summonable at level 1 and can be used as infection vector for sacrilege. Your claim that the Shadows of the Dead doesn't suit warframe's play style is a matter of opinion. Do you think Snow Globe is the same way? How about Chaos or Mind Control?

Mind Control's a good point of reference here by the way. it's a first rank power that turns an enemy into a 'pet'. The big things that pop out here is that while Nyx can pick and choose which enemy to mind control, the target only gains any buff by way of an augment for the ability and the ability has a 30s duration before mods. - you should either list a duration for Desecrate's husk, or inform us that there is no duration.

2)Soul Punch, as I already stated, has an aoe, albeit a strange one. From what I can tell, you're basically turning Soul Punch into a fireball-like projectile, free aimed aoe blast. there's nothing wrong with that, btw, it's a plus on the usability column in my book. However, free-fire can actually work against it here. In the unlikely event you miss, you just burned some hp for no payoff. Yes, its health that you can easily recover with a second casting of this ability - assuming you've got the energy - but it's strange when Nekros's original abilities could only drain health from him when he used augments.

On the subject of the health drain and generation of this ability, Health orbs recover 25 health per orb, you the drain from this ability should be a multiple of that number. Nekros can get a pretty large health pool (1980 without auras by my math), which can either trivialize the health drain - if its a fixed number like 50hp - or make the health generated by the ability rather outrageous. Let's say it drains 25% Nekros' health. Pulling that number from earlier, that'll come out to 495, well's round it up to 500 just so we have a clean multiple. A single enemy killed by this ability will drop 20 health orbs. Kill two, that's 40. And let me remind you, this is just one cast and not including anything else the victims might drop. it'd be quite the resource hog.

I'd honestly cut out the health drain aspect and just have kills produce a health orb each. The guys playing the game on low end laptops will thank you.

Again, I'm going to caution against using vague descriptors like 'medium-sized aoe', we do not know what you consider a medium-sized aoe. The wiki has values for the ranges of most abilities in the game, so you could easily just look up any ability with the area you want and copy the numbers.

3) nice stealth edit. Your original post, as far as I can remember, did not contain anything that suggested that it was a healing ability. No, it came off as generic virus that spreads by proximity.

"Be careful, Bob. I got that virus going around."

"That's alright, I'm in a hazardous environment suit. not germs are going to - oh god! it does nothing!"

"damn space magic."

4) Well, Nekros can fit to door now. Okay, i'll be more serious. Every ability costs something to cast. Ember's World on Fire is 50 with a 5/s drain, Nyx's Absorb is 25 with a 7-4/s drain, Hysteria is 100 energy with no drain, Exalted Blade is 25 with a 2.5/s drain, even Equinox's abilities do. I don't see the reason why Nekros' grim scythe of doom would be any different. Similarly, I don't see why he should be getting discounts on his other abilities' costs while in this form.

The despair aura is still underwhelming.

What about having something like 'enemies that Nekros kills with his scythe of soul reaping adds a temporary, stacking buff to his power strength.' Something like a 10-25% bonus per enemy killed with a modifier based on the victim's relative level. You could even have the reaping scythe benefit from power strength making Nekros' attacks as well as his powers increase in strength as he rampages through the enemy's ranks.

Edited August 26, 2015 by CrashLegacy14